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Archive for December, 2006

We live in an age where much of the media content is produced by and for the adolescent mind set…”Brad and Ange”…”Brittney wears no undies”…”He did this she did that did not did too it was your fault – not it was YOURS”…
“You are the baddies and I am the goody”….Drama drama drama….

The LAW OF ATTRACTION states that “where attention goes energy flows”…and “THOUGHTS CREATE REALITY

Television screens are immersed in murder, mayhem, trickery, The Good-guys (usually America)… The Bad-guys (always the East)……newspapers have become gossip tabloids, magazines blah-blah books…and in the midst of this soulless-saturation…many people are fully , energetically-Law-of-Attraction engaged in creating and re-creating their OWN draaaamaas and endless patterns of chaotic lives….yet desiring a life of happiness and fulfillment at that quiet place of reflection when heads are laid on pillows and Thoughts rise about “what is happening in my life and why??”

The following piece is a light hearted reminder for us all that whilst “drama” often plays a role in our learning of Lifes Lessons and Bless’ns…..we actually have far more C.H.O.I.C.E.S about what we engage our Energy with than we might realise…….

Group Leader:“Welcome Trouble. It is so good you have decided to come along and we’d appreciate it if you would tell us a bit about yourself”

Trouble:“Well I was born into Trouble…my mama was a Drama Queen and my daddy was nowhere to be found.
Mama modelled Drama to us kids very well. She taught us to always pick the wrong kind of guy, make sure there was lots of chaos in our life before getting rid of him and then go out and find another one and get on with the whole dang thing again!”

Person A~ Praise the Lord I think we had the same mama
Person B~ Heavens above…I think I might be your mama
Person C~ silence….no longer even looks Trouble in the eye…

Group Leader“So what has made you decided to come to Dramaholics, Trouble?”

Trouble “Well there I was in the midst of wagging my finger at yet another person who seemed to just want to make my life more complicated..my latest boyfriend who proved to be just like the last three …and all of a suddenI looked up and saw my mama standing there in front of me”

Group Leader“Why was this a problem”?

Trouble “Well she has been dead for ten years but I tell you when I looked up in that bathroom mirror and saw my mamas familiar weary face and angry brow and recognised that disappointed look in her eye, barely concealing those unshed tears…….I KNEW I was in big Trouble!
I stood there looking in the mirror and remembered all the times I had fleshed out arguments in my life.
How many times I found myself bickering with people cause they were so wrong and I was so right and I KNEW I needed to make them see my point of view.
After all the Trouble in me had a very strong calling to point out to others their failings and how to correct themself so they would be just like me.
Then I remembered how many times I would get to a peaceful place and it felt REALLLL uncomfortable so I would start looking around and find someone to make a bit of Trouble with or criticise someone near to me for letting me down or not acting how I thought they should be acting!

Group Leader…“Well Trouble..you have come to the right place and the first thing we would like to do, after the big group hug , is give you a new name…((((((((00000))))))So from now on we will all know you as:

“GrownUp!”We reckon you have had enough Trouble for one life time and with your new insight…cause you have finally seen that you have been creating this Drama in your life for too long now…you earn your Brand New name…

Grown Up…..(blinking modest tears of appreciation and realistion how lonely she had been for so long whilst she was Trouble) “Well thankyou SO much for that…I am amazed that I only had to come here to Dramaholics once to finally really get the message……that when I let go of Trouble…then I really truly am all Grown Up!…

The End

The BE~ginning……

“Men occasionally stumble across the Truth but most pick themself up and hurry off as if nothing has happened”.

Traditional Native American Culture, along with Aboriginal culture and most Earth based Indigenous cultures understand the Sacredness and Divinty of all life forms.
Killing animals for food had ceremonial, totemic and honouring aspects….’punishment’ was restorative and balance oriented not solely isolating, punitive and incarcerating like we see in these bursting-at-the-seams holding pens of pain and revenge called prisons.
Skilled medicine Men could influence circumstances through the skilled application of the Mind…the Law of Attraction.

Cultures deeply seeped in metaphysics, cosmology and co-creation have been submerged in the sea of Western domination….but times are changing and tides are turning…

It is inevitible……

Globally and collectively we are now experiencing environmental degredation, mental illness, self-worth issues and break downs across all western-mind set cultures….and Earth based cultures that have been infected with colonial-miasma and domination are still reeling with outrageosly high statisitcs in the areas of violence, alcoholism, addiction and despair….All symptoms of disconnection form the Source..Love..Spirit……….
In this global “break down” we will gradually see a re-emergence of traditional values and the “Magical” insights that honour our co-creative and interconnectedness. step by step….one person at a time over Time….

This is so…..;-)
This is Sew

This is the DAWNing of the Age of Aquarius..not the sunset or peaceful night time….the dawning..the stirring before the Light and the enlightened years.
We are in the very early stages of re-awakening from a deep and often violent trance that has seen many warring people use their magic wands of Thought and Action to create tragic instead of Magic.
It is not surprising the LAW OF ATTRACTION is becoming more widely known now as we move to a new level of consciousness and co-habitation.

Here in Oz the Dreaming is beginning to whisper to many people, Black and White …

The recent Healing Our Spirit World wide, forum a gathering of representatives from Indigenous nations across the globe in Edmonton is another sign that there is a renewing ans strengthening of the powerful, Laws of Nature based Spiritual essence that once permeated the planet and resulted in sustainable and peaceful co-creation for many years…….

How exciting….

I Honour the Ancestors right across the globe who are whispering to those who are now ready to hear….

Many years ago, I travelled around Australia for four years in a Landrover… living in a caravan with my partner….a good hearted fisher-man, Lisa the Siamese cat and Shamus the Old English Sheepdog…Shamus and Lisa have long past back into the spirit world and the good-hearted man and I parted company in my mid twenties.
I was only 19 at the time and the call to adventure was a call to magic after troublesome times of transition in the teenage years…

One year, two years into the Adventure… we were passing through a coastal town and came across one of those funny little country stores full of Stuff….hardware, homeware, dusty Mills and Boon books…daggy clothing and knick-knacks in boxes and on dark shelves tucked under tables…

I found a clock that on first glance I thought was a ceramic plate-clock….

It had a little country scene created on the brown and white porcelain style of china…I was surprised when I picked it up and discovered it was actually an imitation, plastic clock complete with fine line designer cracks.
Perfect!………had it been really made of ceramic I wouldn’ t have bought it as we often took our caravan over bumpy roads and there was no place for good china and crystal at that stage of lifes adventures….

So I bought this inexpensive little dinner-plate clock and it became a part of my everyday life…it matched the newly papered walls of the caravan…(that’s another story)……..and eventually made the transition from the caravan back into a Proper House…

The Clock was witness to the tears and farwells of a love-now-passed…..was placed in storage when I went to live overseas for a year, was given it’s first ever Big Wall all of its own when I set up home again in the early 90’s……then it travelled with me through another Big Move move, directed more daily life and punctuality through career changes and new stages…… until a major life upheaval saw it taken down from the wall once more …. wrapped in newspaper again and relocated to the home I have lived in for almost nine years…

Every day, no matter where my life was at the Time, The Clock ticked out the rhythm of every day and night……tick tock…tick tock….Time passing neatly by, second by second…..even when life was undergoing chaotic, sometimes unpredictible transitions…the clock never faltered…

At times it was the only constant in a changing world….September 11…tick tock tick tock……..the passing of my Grandmother…tick tock tick tock …the birth of my godchildren….tick tock…..the murder of my friend Janet…..tick tock tick tock…..meeting my beloved Sal….leaving th eplace I had worked for so many years to begin a new adventure…..tick tock let’s rock…..:D…….on and on Time unfolded…..

All the while a motionless country scene with the two children walking along a road looked over my kitchen…a scene painted from an era that had passed just like my own Eras had disappeared through Time…
The good hearted fisherman partner now a memory living in my photo albums…. my beloved animals, friends, family members, colleagues, anniversaries, weddings, happy days and sad days, tick tock…tick tock….

Like an old and much loved elderly relative the Clock that I have glanced at thousands of times over the years began to slow down earlier this year…up grading the batteries to pace maker level didn’t help and eventually it simply stopped working all together….sitting motionless on the wall like a museum piece from a Time now passed…

Recently I sat with The Clock in my hands, remembering the hundreds of time I took my cue to leave the house at 8-15 to catch the tram, how often I glanced at it to keep an eye on appointments, visitors, t.v. programs….should I stay up late….got a plane to catch……where is my fisherman partner from so many years ago…how has his life unfolded with Time?……on and on the hands of The Clock monitored the slithers and segments of my life………

And like the presence of all much loved familiar companions, my time with The Clock, that I fell in love with at a stage in my life when the world was so much smaller and infinitely more simple, has completed it’s cycle……It’s Time to bid my clock farewell.

To enhance well being and creativity…everyone should have somewhere they can relax in a ‘room without walls’…

This is our Fire circle area in the back garden and many peaceful, happy hours have been spent here by the Fire with special friends….. and in solitude connecting with Nature and the night sky in a world that all too often tricks us into forgetting that we are in fact born of earth, water, fire and air…

The outdoor studio…

Yami the Creator Cat has a bed in the outdoor studio…this room is also known as the planning and development suite…

This is a copy of the black and white Elemental Mandala I created for a “remembering we are all connected” workshop (centre).

It is coloured in and cut out and mounted to create a 3 dimensional plaque Mandala.

I was running an Art of Change training workshop for 12 counsellors representing many footsteps ….All around the room the Earth, Water Fire and Air Mandala was being coloured in…rich warm flames, deep blue seas….as I looked around the tables it was as if a circle of little campfires had emerged and the warmth and connectedness in the room was palpable.

A peaceful, playful atmosphere and I was feeling very pleased with how the “Sacred Nature of the work that We Do and Creativity in the Workplace” workshop was going ….very well indeed….

We were at a semi remote camp site, 60 kms south of Adelaide… “Douglas Scrub”, surrounded by the beautiful Australian bush, several kilometers from the nearest town…

We broke for afternoon tea and upon stepping outside saw a huge puff of billowing smoke over the next hill……the wind was blowing towards us and after a brief period of uncertainty…we were evacuated because of a FIRE heading our way….

Oh the theatre of our Fire Evacuation!…tables full of elemental Mandalas….the Community Connections bus with a flat tyre-that-was-changed-very-quickly…art gear tossed will nilly into pillow cases and car boots….Relaxation and Meditation session tossed out the window!

The bush fire water-plane zooming over head….

I unwittingly launched my new Mandala in the baptism of “Fire, fire fire”…

Fortunately the camp site was safe, the Fire was contained and in amongst all this I was gifted with a new insight:

When creating with Fire…especially on a Full Moon day.. ….do not underestimate the power of the collective energy of a group of people colouring the elemental Spirits into Being….

Engaging with art and creativity during workshops provides a creative mind massage, engages all of the senses and is just simply FUN and enjoyable…..transforming the image from the black and white copy is a wonderful way to reactivate dormant creativity and to bring ones own unique perspective to a concept…. but be warned!…..when creating camp fires in the place of imagination and creativty, you just might need to make sure you know exactly what you are dealing with…..;)

*******************************

For interest the words on the bottom of the plaque are by Luisah Teish:

Earth, Water, Fire and Air
Within me all things are there

Flesh on my bones is like the Earth
soft but strong and full of worth

The blood that flows within my veins
Is like the ocean, river and rain

My Spirit soars and takes me higher
Here is where I keep my Fire

My breath and thoughts are like the air
I can do EVERYthing and go ANYwhere

Earth, Water, Fire and Air
within me all things are thereAnd so I pledge unto myself
Power and Love and Health and Wealth

A large part of my work is in the homeless, health and housing sectors and I work with some wonderful, creative, interesting, often very wounded and not-yet-recovered teenage Mothers….young Women who are very early in the journey of self actualisation and in many cases living a life style of “children having children’…passing on generational, toxic patterns that often result in their own children entering the homeless-teenage-parenting realm just a few years down the track…..
We had a graduation day in our “Art of Change” personal development group the other day…It is a group that met monthly throughout 2006 and covered topics such as the power of the Mind, the law of attraction, using creativity and art for creating change.

One of the girls, a 19 year Mother of a 3 year old girl was sharing how she sees the world differently than she did a year ago and how her insight had made her more aware of others and “even animals”….

The young Women in the group are generally uneducated in the formal sense, often having left school as a young teenager…. but very much school-of-life young graduates, most having experienced sexual assault, violence, crime and abandonment in their childhood….
Therefore their use of language and metaphor is usually straight from the hip and a rich alternative to the ‘well spoken’ social interactions of other young Women who have had a more stable beginning in non abusive homes ……and were able to stay in the one school long enough to receive an education.

This particular participant was explaining how there are two abandoned /homeless kittens living in the bottom of her garden and how she has been making a decision as to whether or not to adopt them, having fed them for a month now and feeling confident that she is staying put in her state housing home.

She made a statement that spoke so much more than the thing she was immediately referring to.

She said that when she first saw the kittens they looked like they were “really f***ing ugly” (“f****g being an adjective, verb, joining word, pause and noun all in one sentence much of the time for these young Persephones)….

She then said “Now I realise they were not ugly…they were just ******g scared all the time and it made them look wierd”….

I thought about how so many of the people who came to the shelter over the years often had a very unappealing and unattractive vibration….pain and anger and loss and rage and grief and hopelessness…as staff we came to identify a particular smell that is connected to poverty and despair…it is like an aura of miasma mixed in with the poor hygeine and bad-breath sighs…it is a smell that can permeate a whole house and very unpleasant to be around.

She concluded her story saying “The kittens look beautiful now…they are happy and they know they are getting fed and someone cares for them…it’s amazing how they went from so ******ing ugly to ***** gorgeous!”

The human animal is not so different from the furry-animal kingdom in many ways and I was reminded about how a group of at-risk youths my partner was teaching in a high-need school transformed in an instant when they hired black tie suits and had a visit to the barbers to receive an award for a film project they had produced.

“The robes madeth the man” and it set up a whole new FEELING of pride, deservability and new-view of “Who I am”…
We just got the news this week that one of the boys has been accepted in to film school and this happened only because he had access to new opportunities that created a new FEELING of the world of film, cameras and stories instead of anger, rebellion, more anger and more rebellion. Disconection from love and Soul purpose can be a very ‘ugly’ thing…it creates wars, makes people hurt one another and at it’s most deepest felt….compels a person to take their own life….

I am very grateful that the young personal development graduate shared her story in the language she did because the words “She is not ugly she is scared” have inspired me to contemplate those words “Begin Within” and how feeling undeserving /fearful /unattractive /inferior on the inside will mirror back to us a distorted reality on the outside….the ultimate flaw in the Mirrorcle of Life….and send out a loud and clear message of self loathing and disconnection to the world around us.

Purrly our once homeless stray cat. A strange look in her eye remembering life on the streets as a homeless kitty…

Feeling sooo much more at peace and no longer scared….

And of course Love and acceptance and Friendship takes away that ugly, scared feeling….. heals every time….

I’m working on a handout for a workshop for people who work with clients whose life has been affected by crime.
I have been invited to do the training after one of the managers attended my workshop “Creativity in the Workplace”…
There was close to a hundred people making manadalas and creating butterflies (the symbol of transformation) together…

It was a delight to see much dormant creativity come alive as people were given permission to play and create in the work time space.

I have compiled two lists…one with words that create a sense of happiness, peace and well being and the other that contains the language of crime and suffering….I won’t type examples here because the resonance of the negative list is not welcome in my journal……
The list encourages the participants to look around in their work place and assess the day to environment that they spend so much of their life amongst……are there posters with images and words of pain, struggle and injustice all over the walls ? ……(there usually is in crisis related workplaces)….

Unfortunately most people don’t realise that they are subliminally reading and breathing in the same miasma and suffering of the circumstances they are seeking to change / support when they are in a highly charged, negative / suffering oriented atmosphere.

The learning outcome of the workshop is to raise awareness about the secondary impact of the criminal world they are dealing with on a daily basis, the language, the stories, the Thought time that goes into managing heavy-duty cases…and the long term stress factors when working day after day with pain and heartache.

…….And the difference that introducing creativity and inner-management practices to staff training and development can make for staff members well being as well as take client service delivery to a whole new level.
INNERGY

I use the example of a friend of mine who was working in foster care at the time, placing children out of horrendous situations on a daily basis.
He walked past a book on my kitchen shelf called: “Your Vitamin Profile”….
He turned to me and said:
“hmmm Your Victim profile….that sounds ike an interesting book”…..

It was all in the ‘V’ and the ‘M’..he sees the word Victim daily, writes about, engages with it, thinks about it and talks about it…..thus the world is a victim saturated place….

We get so coded and hypnotised by our workplace circumstances we begin to see the mirror of it in the world around us….”Life is a Mirrorcle”………which is a wonderful thing…..Unless all we are dealing with every day is stress, frustration, pain and limitation in case management /service delivery.

For people who work in crisis / crime environments it’s also important, when discussing Health and Well Being to be aware that if the little box-space we are working in is part of a larger building that has no open windows and thus recycles the air supply day in and day out through the airconditioning. then we are inhaling and exhaling the sighs and sorrows of the clients who come for support on a minute by minute basis.
Therefore environmental as well as internal energy management’ is critical for the long term well being and health of everyone contained within those closed and airless spaces.

Mandalas and creativity are a very powerful antedote for much of the stale and blocked energy that accumulates in the workplace.

I designed the following Mandala to represent re-connecting with the heart space: